An Atmosphere of Worship

Every day we exist in the atmosphere - breathing air, rooted on earth, and feeling the weather. With regards to Christian worship, the atmosphere refers to the “charge” in the room and the realization of the presence of God the Holy Spirit. Because of God’s omniscience and “outside of space and time” nature, we often use atmospheric symbols for our worship and our songs. One such depiction is in the photo attached to this week’s blog post. We reach to God out there in the atmosphere.This past weekend, we engaged with the Creator of the universe in a small brick building in Millington, Tennessee with projected images of the depths of space on its walls and listened to music while worshipping that Creator with our voices, bodies, and emotions. It was a delightful time and my mind was focused on the Creator God and the wonderful gifts of music and dance around me. I had a glow of gratefulness, I will tell you. Something pure and clear and focused on eternity and meaning and the atmosphere of worship in the space we occupied.Besides thoroughly enjoying the presence of God the Holy Spirit, I also enjoyed the flags, the costumes, the lights, the real words of affirmation, the original music, and especially the close and varied community of people that I knew and met for the first time. Some relationships were 30 years old and some were 30 seconds old. The musical skill with which the atmosphere changed inside that building was developed and demonstrated within community and by people who know music is important. The gift of God creating more atmosphere, if you will.